Some more data regarding the mobile ecosphere is available here: http://www.taptu.com/metrics

We at taptu have long believed that the unification of the mobile eco-sphere will only occur when people recognise the mobile web as an easier, and more unifying experience than an app.

Of course, they are certain things that only an App can do, but as a brand, how often do you need the technologies afforded by an App, especially with HTML5 coming on leaps and bounds?

merely my 2 cents, I’d love to hear what you guys think..

I thought I was going to die from boredom when I glanced thru this article, but it turned out to be quite informative, thanks! :D

Good article Richard.

You might want to add Distimo to your resource list (http://www.distimo.com/report).

Another interesting point is that the European network carrier market is very fragmented – much more than in the US. This is also proving to be an interesting challenge for European startups. Thankfully also providing many opportunities. Add to that the language barrier and you’ll see why it’s hard to conquer Europe as a whole. Having said that it is possible as LBS services like Foursquare are proving.

Great article Richard – if I may I’d like to add Taptu’s recent Mobile Touch Web Reports to your list of resources

http://taptu.com/metrics/

and in the spirit of not self promoting too much in the comments there’s also Opera’s recent Mobile Web reports.

http://www.opera.com/smw/

Very true. Fragmentation is here to stay…

ceo

Very useful, pragmatic discussion of mobile from a fellow battle-scared mobile veteran. There is no silver bullet for fragmentation. It has been and will continue to be a trade-off between reach (e.g., SMS) vs richness (e.g., iPhone) for a long time.

Old school thinking and techies behind the times.

Smish http://smi.sh launched yesterday, this is the wave of the future, combining the desktop, web (convergence) and everything (friends, files, feeds, favorites) you do and use into one smart platform, in front of everyone, all the middle men cut out, faster and easier than the way you did it before, free…..watch and see when they launch a mobil platform…fragmentation, phooey!
http://thebig.smi.sh/

I am on the steering committee for MoMo in Chicago. Thanks for the plug. People should become involved with these chapters even thought there seem to be many groups nowadays. It would also be helpful if there were more of a central organization that supported a common web resource. I have tried to contact the leadership!

Since I am doing a start-up in education, these problems are a current issue. Since we have a code base for the iPhone, it makes sense that the iPad will be relevant to our effort. But, I feel that Android will offer a better tablet cost/benefit ratio down the road. Our approach is to develop on the iPad, but to ensure that we can port as soon as funding would make such a product viable.

The market is critical, and not all mobile use scenarios fit every device. In my discussions with Discovery yesterday, it was recognized that developing for many platforms quickly escalates costs beyond the possible return on investment. Sears for example supports many mobile platforms but still generates most of its mobile sales from the iPhone.

Targeting is critical. Making a product possible on a platform still doesn’t make it viable.

That Morgan Stanley graphic seems mislabeled to me (or maybe created by someone who is too young to remember the 70′s and 80′s)?

Having lived through them both, I would argue 1980′s was real inflection point for desktop computers. 1990′s inflection point for desktop internet computing. And only now, 2000′s and maybe 2010′s the inflection point for mobile internet computing.

But then, maybe they don’t mean “inflection point”. Maybe they mean “the first time an experience ever appeared, even though adoption was ~0%)?

Flash Lite was an early approach, popular on over a billion early smartphones, but was not in an environment where it could be used as a browser plugin, and the different loading models did make content development difficult.

Now nearly every device manufacturer is supporting Adobe Flash Player 10.1 as browser plugin, and behind that comes AIR for cross-device native applications using only standard webdev techniques.

Fragmentation is real. But Adobe’s gig is in uniting separate silos, whether for printing devices (PostScript), use of electronic documents (PDF), or now with on-screen displays (Flash). Such publishing efficiencies may not eradicate fragmentation, but they will ameliorate them.

(Nice tips on navigating the turbulence though, thanks.)

jd/adobe

Morgan Stanley says we had Macs and the IBM PC in the 1970s ??? Desktop Internet and Google in the 1980s ??? iPhone in the 1990s ??? Can’t comment on the 50s and 60s, but 70s+ are embarrassingly wrong. I feel bad for Wong if some TechCrunch staff picked that awful graphic, ‘cos it discredits the whole piece.

Easy fix for those: shift each a decade up, and the 1970s should be “Hobbyist Computing” with a picture of an Altair 8800.

Now what were we talking about?

The first thing that struck me about the article was that the timelines in that graphic were off by about 10 years. Mac was 1984, Google was 1998, iPhone was 2007. The rest of the article was decent, however.

Good article…But the Morgan Stanley graph is incorrect. I know, because I was a VP marketing with IBM in 1981 when we rolled out the PC which belongs to the eigthies, not the seventies. The pics that follow are also wrong by a decade unless it all refers to development periods and ignores when it went to market. Is this important? Sure, we don’t like anybody to rewrite history as it were.

Really well written, thoughtful and analysis. We need more of this kind of article in Techcrunch.

Nice post. Thoughtful and to the point. Thanks.

I do agree with Peter though, that graphic seems off by a decade. -I had that IBM PC in the 80′s.

Nice piece Richard. I do believe that a silver bullet exists, and that it will emerge a lot sooner that most believe. Fragmentation is not just a mobile com problem. It’s an overall modern communication problem. Our means to solving this nasty fragmentation problem exists in the cloud— the web. The things that make my phone work, the apps, the data, the contacts, the media, must eventually follow me from screen to screen. Today’s mobile devices are micro PCs… and that reality sometimes escapes us. The unifying platform that will bring today’s competing mobile platforms to their knees will be a” universal identity platform”. When I purchase a new phone years from know, I will upload my digital Identity unto my new phone, and everything I had that made my old phone mine will make my new phone mine. Phones that aren’t compatible with this universal ID platform will sit in shelves. This platform will come, and it will change the game.

Rich you are spot on with your post. Will be interesting to see what happens to this fragmentation over time. Companies tend to develop very sophisticated strategies to keep people on their platform i.e. Microsoft yet google+open APIs have certainly made a dent. Eventually I do think we see consolidation but for now we have to suffer thru the same fragmentation that existed in the UNIX world, Java, HTML etc etc

This is one of the most intelligent pieces on mobile I’ve ever read on this blog. Thanks!

From a consumer viewpoint, true. But the 8088 was truly ’70s technology, just as the MacOS was derived from the Palo Alto Research Center STAR workstation (late ’70s) and the iPhone (2007) was really built on ’90s technology. Of course, as long as a technology is only in a lab it isn’t really making a difference to how we live.

What?

The key reason there is fragmentation is that the telcos and the handset makers won’t let Intel and Microsoft aggregate all of the innovation (and profits) as they did to the PC industry. PC makers making low single digit profit margins while MSFT and INTC reporting 60+% margins.

Excuse me for bopping between buying airline tickets and posting.

First, thanks for supporting MoMo. PR…

Secondly, these issues (the article) include deciding what platform to develop for. The decisions are a result of previous work and potential of the various platforms.

Very good article indeed.

Steve Jobs had said in an interview back in 2007 about how he had not seen hardware-software decoupling working well in form factors other than the PC. He had said however that it might happen in the mobile space.

I wonder whether its time to agree that it has happened, especially with Android fast becoming a platform that many phone manufacturing are lining up to. Though, again the major manufacturers still have their own proprietary OS.

fragmentation is not here to stay. theres only so much a phone can do and we are at that apex of innovation now.

“Inevitable Innovation Integration” kills fragmentation by default.

This is the most sane article about mobile fragmentation I’ve read for a while.

Fragmentation will be there in the future, even in the lucky case that HTML5 would penetrate the mobile device market earlier than anticipated. This is because innovation in mobile devices has just began and we will see new kinds of devices in which standard display is just one part. Other parts can be around your wrist, weared in your jacket etc.

Browser technology is optimized for displaying stuff, but mobile devices are and will be used in situations where you are NOT actively looking at a display. All cool mobile services, if they want to be integral part of users daily experience, have to take this into account.

Good article overall :) I would agree with RalphF though that wherever you got that graphic from has missed something.
- Mobile computing barely got into its infancy in the early 2000′s, not the 1990′s.
Major Internet use was the 1990′s and not the 1980′s.
- Let’s not forget Yahoo was 1994 and Google was 1998. Even AOL Online was I think 1989?
- I doubt many people had personal computers in the 1970′s either. Mass adoption of in home PC use was def in the 1980′s

But still a great article :)

The original Morgan Stanley graph had each cycle later by one decade… looks like Accel modified the original version.

http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/mobile_internet_report122009.html

Hi, this is Rich Wong – yes btw, I agree MSDW in the chart posted has their dates/decades mislabeled. I think its Mobile is the 2000 – 2020 era in my personal opinion. Thanks for all the comments

Teemu, thanks for calling me sane … others might disagree with you, but appreciate it :)

[...] Smartphone platforms are inherently fragmented. [...]

[...] Shared In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It.. [...]

And the link to the original MSDW Mary Meeker report is here – http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/mobile_internet_fsreport122009.html … for those of you interested in reading more

Yes Richard, there surely is no magic standardized bullet for these applications or browsers, but what about crafting a universal tool leveraging the standardized file playback capabilities of all mobile devices?

Albeit the global mobile platform segmentation, music is universal in mp3 format, and images in jpg format. You mentioned Nokia’s 70% market share dominance in India – which is our 3rd largest source of revenue.

We now have over 4,000 users and have sold over 3,000 of our patent pending products. Although our iPhone Apps generated $3k in their first 2 months, our simple disruptive patent pending product line of digital vocabulary flashcard files have carried us much further.

Briefly, PlaySay empowers busy people to learn their dream language on the go. Anytime. Anywhere. On any mobile device. We turn cell phones into sexy walking, talking foreign language teachers. Try it at http://playsay.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/playsay

[...] just read Rich Wong’s article in TechCrunch today and as usual, he had a great perspective.  I love the “deal with it” perspective [...]

It’s hard for me to take any article seriously that claims the Internet decade was the 80s (complete with an image of Google, not founded until 1998), and that the 90s were the mobile decade (again accompanied by an anachronistic image: the iPhone wasn’t released until 2007).

If you can’t even get the basics of the market defined in your graphics, it really makes the rest of your content suspect.

Rich, I’ve read some much crap lately about mobile techs that ‘sane’ just felt the most complimentary word … ;-)

I was so delighted about your thoughts about mobile that I’ve been spending the rest of the evening reading your presentations and watching your ’2010′ interview with Scoble. Absolutely great stuff!

I think this is spot on. Those of us who bear the battle scars of the last decade in mobile can attest to the fact that promises of one platform to do everything just don’t pan out. This religious war over which technology wins and enables build once run everywhere is phony, none will. Great post.

Give it up, flash is dead dead dead, why drag it out! Why is Adobe’s proprietary lock down product worth defending. It is an old bolt-on to the browser bolt-on. They never made a decent effort to maintain it properly across platforms. Why would any other hardware or software company want to be held ransom to Adobe’s monopoly control over their runtime environment. As new variants of hardware and software platforms enter the market place Adobe will hold the fate of these companies hostage. Even if Adobe was making a completely honest effort, their track record suggest they would simply not be able to keep up with their cross platform support in a timely manner. This would slow down innovation and competition, no one benefits from that. I have been slightly disappointed at times with the lock down pivot point on some Apple products, but Adobe, now that is true abuse of customers at every level. I, like others, have been burned by Adobe one to many times. I will never do business with them again. They are very greedy and have absolutely no intention of including their customers or partners in their value equation.

[...] mobile platforms” appeared on the same day as the TechCrunch article by Rich Wong, “In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It“.  Despite the different titles, the articles covered many of the same [...]

Rich,

Nicely stated. Fragmentation makes most things really difficult to peg. Another point of advice to mobile entrepreneurs is to be really thoughtful about timing. If you are a successful internet entrepreneur – you need to forget most things you have learned related to time to revenue (real revenue that is). Those battle-scarred guides come in handy here.

Fragmentation also creates opportunity. Mobile will be the great growth story of our lifetime. Mary Meeker’s piece is telling – if you look at the meat of it, the growth projections are sound, if not conservative.

To those attracted to today’s apps/services sex appeal, good luck. There’s great opportunity there – hope you have a guide and aren’t too early. Don’t forget about the great opportunities in the network bottleneck.

=== popurls.com === popular today…

yeah! this story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…

This is a fine piece of work. I’d like to extend the discussion in three ways:

1.) Some developers can find a magic bullet

2.) New intermediate platforms for old phones

3.) An imperative to solve the fragmentation problem.

For more details, see my posting “Coping with mobile fragmentation” which in turn has more pointers to further discussion of the vexed question of fragmentation.

// David Wood

excellent article!

>> Get a guide

if anyone is looking for a guide/assistance – drop me a message. i have been working in the mobile space for well over 10 years now; working with many platforms and investigating the market going forward. you can view more about my background on linked in:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ardiri

you should definitely get help when making decisions around these areas!.

// Aaron Ardiri
aaron@ardiri.com

Rich, I think you are a little conservative. Mobile data started more or less converged with WAP. Since then the various factions seem to have been diverging at an increasing rate and I don’t see any technology having a chance of bringing them together and the idea that it will be a technical rather than a user experience that brings them together is dreamland.

Yup – I noticed the same thing, everything is 10 years off.

Maybe he’s from Utah?

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

I agree, especially about the perpetual belief that the end of fragmentation is around the corner. Another point: when designing the user experience, from features to process to user interface, the experience should be optimized for many devices not just one. Get a designer who designs for multiple screen sizes and interaction methods.

Funny, I heard that line before.

“In technoglogy, Fragmentation will be forever”.

Obviously, this is expected. So don’t expect the perfect device to come up okay?

Is fragmentation just a result of mobile device manufactures not working together to establish commonality in the mobile platforms? In effect it seems that they are trying to safeguard their market share by making developers choose which devices/locations to develop for.

“Even as HTML5 richness has improved substantially, browser support will still vary and many, many phones will not support HTML5 for 7+ years.”

Where did he pull that number from?

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] via In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Damn. Great friggin’ article TC! Get guys like this to post here more often.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] Cool blog post by Don Dodge on platform shifts and how the world of technology is evolving. It also kind of mixes with a guest post on TechCrunch about the fragmentation of mobile. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Thanks Chris, appreciate the commentary

Hey guys – yeah you’re right, somehow the dates got transposed on the chart so everything is 10 years off … I did live in Utah for almost a year as a mgmt consultant … but not sure I can blame that..

Firstly, Adobe’s design tools are excellent and you won’t find many people arguing that they are not the best in their respective fields. Secondly, the disparity between releases and performance across platforms has been steadily improving since Adobe bought Macromedia such that releases across all platforms are now simultaneous (although obviously the Linux version needs the most work). Also you’ll find that in Flash Player 10.1, the Mac version performs almost as well as then PC version because of Apple’s help with CoreAnimation support, etc. Give Adobe a bit of credit for creating the web you enjoy today.

You know, I have been hearing how Flash would never go anywhere, or was dying, since before it was even called Flash! Give it up. No whining about the evils of Flash are going to make it just suddenly disappear.

Folks,

If you’re concerned about platform fragmentation you should take a look at Ideaworks and their Airplay SDK. They’ve abstracted the underlying platform so that the same code, in fact the same binary, can be deployed across many devices. They’ve got support out of the box for iPhone, WinMobile, Symbian, BREW, Maemo, Palm webOS. This is all native C++ code too.. no VMs or esoteric languages to learn. All the platforms features are exposed too.. GPS, SMS, Accelerometer, Touch.

They’ve been doing brilliantly in the games arena but I reckon their SDK could be used for pretty much anything else.

Check ‘em out: http://www.airplaysdk.com

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Mr. Wong is right – there is no silver bullet in standards. In industries without much consumer-facing regulation (like mobile and travel, where I play) and with the additional component of multiple business processes (in travel, especially in the hotel industry), the silver bullet doesn’t exist and will never exist. In a messy and competitive business world, fragmentation will always exist – deal with it!

But his analysis assumes an either/or proposition, and that’s where his argument could be improved. Standards help to level the playing field, but burdening any standard with solving fragmentation dooms it and is based on a false premise – that is, that business processes are relatively static and predictable.

Good standards create a baseline, a starting point, to standardize the commodity piece of their product, which is helpful for established players and new entrants alike, as well as their customers.

The ‘no-silver-bullet’ argument is generally used as a crutch for people who don’t want to participate in standards-building or believe that standards lead to commoditization (another fallacy) or will somehow compromise their competitive advantage or stifle innovation (both immature perspectives).

I wrote a post on Tnooz about this topic specific to the travel industry – http://www.tnooz.com/2010/02/12/news/why-travel-technology-standards-should-not-be-a-snooze/.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Continued fragmentation has implications not only for the entrepreneur (as discussed), but also the organizations implementing smartphones in volume already.

A recent Forrester study identifies that 46% of enterprises (large companies) support some type of personal mobility device not purchased by the company.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcalento

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] March 5, 2010 http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/mobile-fragmentation-forever/ [...]

[...] March 5, 2010 http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/mobile-fragmentation-forever/ [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It TechCrunch [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

very nice Rich – excellent points. SMS/MMS will continue to be common denominator for foreseeable future. The gap between web service and native apps are too big still.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Historically speaking, fragmentation usually is the precursor to emerging dominant players. In early days of computing, there were multitude of OS’s to contend with. There was CP/M, MS-DOS, apple II’s OS and various permutations of major OS’s none of which were compatible with each other. Today, in the desktop computing arena Windows and Mac dominate with Linux being somewhat of a side show. The mobile segment is almost certain to follow the same footprint. If you subscribe to this point of view, which I believe many developers and investors do, then you would be reluctant to devote significant funds or energy to this market segment. As a mobile developer seeking funding, I was told by more than a few VC’s that they are reluctant to commit to the mobile market segment due to the fragmentation issue. In other words, many are standing on the sidelines waiting for the oncoming shakeout. Even Rich Wong’s article is very telling in that it is cajoling folks to stick their toes into this turbulant current promising them that waiting is a futile exercise because mobile fragmentation is here to stay. My point of view is
that as Rich states there is no magic bullet but out of multitude of competing technologies superior ones will be emerging sooner than later. This is just part of the maturing process of any market segment where dominant player evetually emerge and bit players fall to the wayside. We are seeing some of that beginning to take shape by Palm being increasingly relegated to history while iPhone is emerging to become one of the dominant platforms of the future.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Valyn – thanks for the comments, and I agree with the subtlety you’re adding as well. Just to expand on the point …

Per this line from the article above — “I actually do believe that Webkit browsers, HTML5, continued progression of J2ME, Android and iPhone are all positive trends that will help make things easier for many developers, but none of them will be a single-threaded answer”, I actually DO believe that these standards can help. My point is that as a STARTUP ENTREPRENEUR not to wait for these efforts as it will take a while.

At my last company , Iwas involved with working on the formation of the OMA, personally drove the MAAWG (anti-abuse working group), and feel these were worthwhile initiatives, but again, I was working at a public company with $300mm+ revenues and resources, v different than the tough tradeoffs an entrepreneur has to make.

But, I agree with your point very much on the subtlety vs the either/or. Thanks Rich

[...] Fragmentation in Mobiles: by Rich Wong. “The smartest entrepreneurs will not wait for these fragmentation issues to be solved but are figuring out now how to pick a use case, a core platform, and geography to bound their problem and get going.” [...]

Great article, Richard. And thank you for mentioning WURFL.

I see people mention how bad device fragmentation is here. Having being
rather deeply involved with the problem for many years, by now, if provided with a good reason, I would be able to convincingly argue that
device fragmentation is bad or that device fragmentation is actually good (in the latter case, I would probably call it device diversity, though).

The point is, as you say, that device diversity is inevitable and that’sbecause both device manufacturers and consumers want device diversity.
Historically, some operators have tried to counter device diversity, but, eventually, they have surrendered to overwhelming market forces
pushing the opposite way.

To be frank, I also see a fair deal of annoying device fragmentation generated by OEM sloppiness in my daily job. What should I say of
browsers from a major Canadian manufacturer which refuse to display icons, unless they are at least 5 pixel wide/high?

But let’s not digress. Device fragmentation is here and dealing with it is like paying the $20 fuel surcharge on our airfares: we may bitch about it as much as we want, but we need to pay it if we want to fly.

Luca

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

I tend to disagree. In web 2.0 there tends to be 1 and only 1 major player. 1 search engine. 1 video site. 1 auction site etc. I think this will be no different. It may take a while to shake out. But the magic bullet may just appear

Thanks Luca – you bring up a great point around OEM sloppiness creates unintentional fragmentation itself. Good image on the surchage.

For those of you who don’t know Luca Passani … Luca, founded the WURFL open source initiative as mentioned in the article and has been thinking about this topic for quite a while. Thanks Luca – Rich

BTW, looks like my twitter address is incorrect per above, i didn’t know it was case sensitive – correct is @rich_wong

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

I agree with Rich that fragmentation is here to stay. I would go even further than the headline and paraphrase Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street and say “In Mobile, Fragmentation is Good.

Why is it good?

I believe that already in 2011 we will see smartphones outsell “lesser” phones. By the end of 2012, there will be an installed base of over one billion smartphones. That year along, over 600 million smartphones will be sold worldwide.

One of the things that makes phones so different from PCs has to do with micro-segmentation. Like we’re getting used to hearing “there’s an app for everything,” we are a year or so away from “there’s a phone for every person”. Sony Ericsson’s newly released XPERIA 10 Mini, is a good examples of what’s to come. Intense segmentation of the market, opening up thousands of niches. Just like we all don’t drive the same car, the days are over where everyone in Silicon Valley either has the same BlackBerry, iPhone or Nexus One.

With over a billion people using smartphones, we will see thousands of micro-segments being serviced by thousands of different designs and usage model.

And this is where the goodness of fragmentation comes in. An operating system design comes with inherent restrictions. There is a need to make sure apps run the same way on all devices, that aspect ratios are more or less the same and a ton of other restrictions aimed a making the experience really good.

If one operating system was going to serve all form factors, all market segments, all use cases and all price points, the market would start trending towards a lowest common denominator.

With multiple operating systems, we will have a number of high common denominators. Consumers will be served better by the devices, and by the targeted apps that app developers are able to write.

Now, for developers, fragmentation can seem like a burden, but I believe most developers won’t choose to address every single consumer of the one billion plus smartphone owners of 2012. Developers will choose a market segment to serve, a use case to address and thus also only need to develop apps for a subset of operating systems.

Horizontal developers, building services and components across all operating systems (like ad networks and mapping companies) will initially see fragmentation as a burden, but ironically later as a barrier to entry. Once you master the skill of serving a large number of developers across all the popular operating systems, it’s harder for someone else to come and build a competing service.

So in other words, played right, fragmentation is good…

A very interesting discussion, yet there is a solution for fragmentation out there for mobile developers.

http://www.airplaysdk.com/

Hmm, if mobile fragmentation is good for consumers, does that mean that twice as much fragmentation would be twice as good for consumers?

Would ten times as much mobile fragmentation be ten times as good for consumers?

To continue the flow of rhetorical questions: If fragmentation is good for consumers, should the designers of Qt (to pick, as an example, one important intermediate mobile platform) deliberately fragment it, into several different incompatible versions?

Clearly, it’s a question of degree. But what degree is optimal?

My view is that the amount of mobile fragmentation we have today is “beyond good”. See my latest blogpost “Fragmentation beyond good” for a longer explanation.

Yes, there’s good sense in telling developers to “deal with” fragmentation. But there’s danger in that approach, too.

We need to remember that developers have choices. Instead of working on mobile projects, they may well choose to work on something quite different instead. The mobile opportunity is huge, but it’s by no means the only opportunity in town. Those of us who want the mobile industry to thrive should, therefore, be constantly looking for ways to address the pain points and friction that mobile developers are experiencing.

RIch, twitter addresses aren’t case sensitive. Either @rich_wong or @Rich_Wong will get the same result.

The problem above is much simper: TechCrunch has written “@Rich_Wong” but have expanded that URL to http://twitter.com/richard_wong instead (as you can see by hovering your mouse over the link).

Just to point out – I talk about “getting help from an expert” in the article … so folks know who Juha is …. Chairman @Cloudmade, Corp VP of Microsoft Mobile team, Symbian EVP, co-founder of SunStone Capital and Board member of the CTIA .. amoung many other things. So if you’re looking for help in mobile, this is one of the TRUE experts. Thanks for the comments Juha – Rich

Nice article Rich. You should take a look at Monotouch. You can get reuse of non-ui code anywhere you can run .Net and implement the ui specific to the platform, which currently means iPhone but they are bringing Android to it as well. With the upcoming win 7 mobile, there will be potential for a lot of code that can be reused there too. From a developers perspective, this seems to be a good middle ground between totally heterogeneous development stacks vs. “write once run anywhere” that seems to result in apps that often look and feel out of place.

disclosure: I’m writing a book on Monotouch so I’m a bit biased ;)

For some reason the URL for the piece I referenced can’t be followed from the link in the previous comment. Let me try again:

http://dw2blog.com/2010/03/06/fragmentation-beyond-good/

Good read the graphic is wrong, its ten years late e.g mainframe 60′s, mini 70′s, desktop 80′s, web 90′s, and mobile 2010+

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Yes it is, somehow we slid the dates over a decade somewhere in the publishing process…. Rich

I’ve never seen so much marketing talk without a single example of what it is or why I want it.

I also enjoyed the “dev center” which basically says “we have an API”, well that’s real useful..

Well researched and thought out, Richard. I’ll be an end user when it comes to this stuff, but it may help some of my friends that are pursuing mobile apps development.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Great article Richard

[...] Mobile Fragmentation Forever. But Big Differentiated Platforms Will Exist Posted March 8, 2010 Filed under: Mobile, Tech Strategy | Rich Wong, a Partner at Accel argues that the mobile landscape will be fragmented for a while:  In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It.. [...]

Very concise and eloquent article, Richard. I agree that it’s absolutely necessary to accept that there is no catch-all answer to entering or expanding within the mobile market. Your suggested approach of building familiarity within one or two platforms/app stores is a good one, and I would add that it’s extremely important to approach these first decisions in an informed way. For newcomers to the world of mobile, this can be a daunting task to say the least.

research2guidance’s newly-released report, “Global Smartphone Application Market Report 2010,” is a key resource for companies currently facing these very decisions. Preview some of the insights we have collected from established market players (and included in the report, of course) here:

http://bit.ly/r2g_AppReportPreview

We have a very hard time seeing the correlation between fragmented and decentralized identity and the hugely fragment, inefficient experiences we face with technology. Every time we purchase a new device, be it mobile or a full workstation, how much time do we spend reloading software, media, data and preferences. “Identity” by definition is “centralized” and “managed”. If I want to keep something from my wife or boss on one device, I should hope that all my devices and platforms will aid in that goal. When I upload a new profile photo, and I want that photo to follow me everywhere.. and I want to control which relationships this new profile photo is for. That is dynamically distributed ID. Facebook Connect, OpenID, etc are not identity platforms. They bill themselves as much because the market demand is so great… but these platforms aren’t “designed” for managed ID. I agree that no one has succeeded in delivering a unified ID platform, and you illustrate well why they’re failed.

Rich, nice post and great advice to developers. When I was at Adobe my team launched the Open Screen Project in an attempt to reduce fragmentation by making the Flash Platform THE consistent runtime across devices. Although Flash has momentum (Nokia, RIM, Android, Palm and many OEMs are supporting Flash), Apple’s refusal to adopt Flash for its devices is a great case example of a bigger business issue:

Although most in mobile point to device fragmentation a huge issue, the OEM’s own need to differentiate their devices causes more fragmentation.

It is clear from Apple marketing that Steve Jobs has chosen to differentiate the iPhone based on its rich catalog of native apps. Supporting Adobe’s Flash Platform (whose vision is that apps have the same experience on any device) would work against this need to differentiate.

I think one big lesson Apple has taught the industry is that fragmentation is OK as long as developers can easily address each “fragment.” Apple did not help fragmentation. In fact, Apple created a new fragment. But Apple made it easy for developers to reach consumers without the need for intermediaries (operators, aggregators) who took a significant share of revenue.

Coincidentally, I posted an article about why Steve Jobs will never support Flash where I elaborate on this need for OEM’s to differentiate (i.e. increase fragmentation). The article is at this link:

http://franciscokattan.com/2010/03/07/why-steve-jobs-will-never-put-adobe-flash-on-iphone-os-devices/

For what its worth, I wasn’t trying to comment on mobile identity specifically nor other utilities and services that help. I’m primarily commenting the underlying DEV INFRASTRUCTURE and DEV PLATFORMS .. While I personally find identity services useful, I do think its likely there will be many (e.g. the MSFT Passport, AOL Magic Carpet, and Liberty Alliance initiatives always seemed to start of with a head of momentum, then wilt away in my experience) – thanks Rich Wong

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

“Although most in mobile point to device fragmentation a huge issue, the OEM’s own need to differentiate their devices causes more fragmentation.”

I would venture to say that OEM’s need is not to differntiate but to create a unique user experience that attracts customers. If differentiation take place as a result of this then it is just a byproduct and not the driving intention. We are experiencing fragmentation is the mobile space because it is ripe with innovation and the innovators are all using their own unique bent in order to solve the problems that the eccosystem is presenting them. As the hardware platforms become more robust streamlining will be the inevitable outcome. Along the way, there will be many peaks and troughs and now we just happen to be in a peak as demonstrated by the crowded field of players vying for dominance. But once the freshness of the today’s mobile experience wears off and the public demands new functionalities then we will see even greater innovation brought to bear which will result in greater squeeze on the current players in the field and the marginal ones will dissapate.

How does an innovator surrive the bleeding edge? Certainly not by pumping out niche apps for the latest and greatest devices that happen to arrive on the scence. But by developing an enduring vision of what the future will look like and developing within that framework. Anything else will put you on you on the wild cycle of peaks and troughs and only those who adept at riding them will benefit. Everyone else will have to start anew at the trough.

[...] winner is? I agree with Accel Partner’s Richard Wong that fragmentation in the mobile space is here to stay due to technology but also because of varying business [...]

Hello Kam. This may be semantics, but I do believe there is a need for OEMs to differentiate given heightened competition. It is up to each OEM to decide HOW to differentiate. I agree with you that OEMs can choose to differentiate with a unique user experience, and most are. But others can choose to differentiate in other ways (in addition or instead), for example, with applications, industrial design, price, etc.

I agree with the other point you are making (“the marginal ones will dissipate”). Most certainly we will see a consolidation of mobile platforms. But this will take time and it’s important for developers to learn to deal with the level of fragmentation today.

nice addition francisco agree – R

I complete understand that you were talking about dev environments for mobile apps. My point is that ID protocols will standardized the way developers think about mobile apps, and will make competing platforms more open. Most of these apps touch pieces of our usage that inform ID. A framework that enables these apps to speak with each other and allows ID data to flow between them will change how apps are used and how they are developed. If there is a silver bullet that will force the mitigation of fragmentation… it is a standardized API for ID data. I’ve been working on this issue for 3 years… so of course I see it as a glaring problem with a huge upside.

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

[...] Java J2ME mobile gaming market having bad times as well. The high porting costs due to the fragmentation of the Java handset market and inflexible operator-run marketplaces have made it quite impossible [...]

[...] In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. [...]

Great common sense advice in this note. After over 10 years of mobile industry I am delighted to see mobile web finally there, but I won’t dare making predictions. I agree : no silver bullet, no uniform worldwide users, plenty of paths and guides to get you there.
My own advice is first to follow your passion for applications, user experiences, efficient business model. Secondly edge your bets for technology and advisers as things change. And in MoMo you have over 40 chapters to chose to follow ! http://cflorin.blogspot.com/2010/03/surfing-mobile-web-at-mwc2010.html

[...] Wong recently stated in a post on Techcrunch that “mobile fragmentation is forever,” but if you own 44.4% of the smartphone market, then you [...]

Hmmm, don’t we have a computer for that?

+1 to that, excellent cars metaphor!

[...] ever increasing burden and business challenges. The big problem the mobile industry especially is fragmentation due to the loose and ambiguous (or missing) standards. For newcomers, it definitely does not make [...]

I’m surprised this article was published March 4th 2010. It already seems outdated.

Adobe announced Flash Player 10.1 for mobile at MWC 2010 on February 14th. Also, there are many services offering cross-platform mobile application publishing such as Corona by Ansca (http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/), or others like MotherApp(http://www.motherapp.com/) & Appcelerator Titanium(http://www.appcelerator.com/). Even though the fragmentation remains, these services bridge the gap much better than Rich lets on in this article.

This article seems more like a pitch for his venture AdMob instead of an editorial on the mobile market fragmentation.

In reply to some other commenters, please see this article for more factual data about the Apple vs. Adobe propaganda : http://blog.nothinggrinder.com/id-rather-be-a-woz

[...] e denaro per raggiungere un nuovo tipo di consumatore che a che fare con i prodotti e i marchi da una gran varietà di dispositivi e preferisce fidelizzare con coloro che tessono elegantemente insieme queste esperienze [...]

[...] 4 is available everywhere.Apple’s certainly done nothing wrong to cause this – it comes to all manufacturers as their product line matures – and in truth this has been brewing for some time in the small [...]

[...] consideriamo il trend di frammentazione del software in ambito mobile come qualcosa di duraturo (su TechCrunch c’è un interessante articolo in merito, magari ci ritorneremo) è probabile che i numeri di [...]

[...] amounts of time and money to reach a new type of consumer who engages with products and brands across a variety of devices and prefers to remain loyal to those that elegantly weave these fragmented experiences [...]

If only I had a greenback for each time I came here.. Amazing article.